2018 Overall Production Roadmap (updated 19th January)

After quite a while, 3.0 has finally been released, With that milestone reached, the development continues and there is a new overhaul roadmap to be posted later this month.

As some might know, the feature-driven updates approach of SC has been dropped for a date-driven one. This means X or Y feature will not be imposing if it can't be done by X date, giving preference to release what they have implemented instead.

Comments

Good to see they've finally got the schedule up. If they manage to hit
this target we might see 3.1 before the year is out as well.

Edit: Read a post saying 3.0 has been slimmed down quite a bit. Apparently planets are now being released in later
patches ie ArcCorp/Area 18 in 3.1 Hurston, Crusader and MicroTech in 3.2, so for the time being we'll be able to land on moons rather than planets like originally planned, strangely there's no mention of mining in either schedule.

What? According to just released schedule for 3.x, SQ 42 is unlikely to be out before the end of 2018...

OR ... you could read what they write ...

"....Also note, this schedule does not represent everything CIG
is working on, but more the functionality and content we feel
comfortable committing to at this time. Outside of the work on Squadron
42, we have a few research projects that, once validated, we would move
into production and add to this schedule....."

Wasn't 3.0 supposed to go live last year? 'Cos well, if all they have now is the schedule for it, what was done about 3.0 all this time?

Yes, they planned it to go live in 2016.

They've been trying to reach live status all the time. The problem is that either they really suck at estimating the work needed, or they really suck at completing that work. I hope it's the former and not the latter.

Wasn't 3.0 supposed to go live last year? 'Cos well, if all they have now is the schedule for it, what was done about 3.0 all this time?

Yes, they planned it to go live in 2016.

They've been trying to reach live status all the time. The problem is that either they really suck at estimating the work needed, or they really suck at completing that work. I hope it's the former and not the latter.

Or they ran into some problems ... which incidently they DID communicate to everyone that wanted to listen. That caused the delay.

Their biggest bones to chew at the moment are the NSC AI and network performance.

Wasn't 3.0 supposed to go live last year? 'Cos well, if all they have now is the schedule for it, what was done about 3.0 all this time?

Yes, they planned it to go live in 2016.

They've been trying to reach live status all the time. The problem is that either they really suck at estimating the work needed, or they really suck at completing that work. I hope it's the former and not the latter.

Or they ran into some problems ... which incidently they DID communicate to everyone that wanted to listen. That caused the delay.

Their biggest bones to chew at the moment are the NSC AI and network performance.

More detailed information can be found in the monthly studio reports.

Have fun

I disagree and I would like to see an example of this, unless there is some form of hidden Mafia speak then I have never seen them point to blockers for 3.0 and say this is what is causing our delay.

They've talked plenty about tech and features that are going to be in 3.0 and shown how some of that is progressing but that is as far as it has gone.

This is the 2nd major update (the biggest one to date yet btw) that is put on the Production Schedule, this is not a "shiny" release date estimate thrown at a game conference and comes from the actual review of the entire production and the status/deadlines of every task. But it still is one estimate, not solid or promised dates.

That's why you would be better why watching how the production of 3.0 progresses every week as that is updated to have the better idea of how close it is.

(you don't have to answer that, because we both know the answer is yes.)

Of the examples i gave above ? 1 out of 3 missed. By a few days.

If you mean the overall project ... several dates have been missed. Especially the 3.0 we are talking about here. Which is not unusual for the video game industry. The only difference is ... in this crowdfunding open development project you DO hear about the delays. In most other game projects you never hear about the delays - which happen the same way as in SC - because you only hear about the game once its ready for launch in approx. 6 months. That is when the marketing machine starts to roll. Delays happen in other projects too - but no one is there to ask for reasons for the delay as no one knows about the game at that point.